Everything Is Not Equally Good

One of my favorite companies is 37signals. Although they are a web development firm, there is a lot of similarity between what they do and what a traditional architect does. Their blog, Signal VS. Noise, is very worthwhile. This post from their blog about everything not being equal gives expression to something we have all experienced. I know I don't always point out that "the emperor has no clothes". I like the way David Heinemeier Hansson looks at the issue.

SIGNAL VS. NOISE                                                                                              January 2, 2013
Everything is not equally good

When talk­ing shop, there’s a nat­ur­al ten­den­cy to avoid the drama of con­fronta­tion by rel­e­gat­ing all dis­putes to Your Mileage May Vary. If we can declare all approach­es and tech­niques to be of value only “under cer­tain cir­cum­stances”, then we can avoid the hard work of find­ing the bet­ter alter­na­tive and mere­ly stop at dif­fer­ent.

I don’t think this serves any­one. Well, that’s not entire­ly true. It sup­ports the ego of the per­son propos­ing the bad idea. It also helps the ego of any­one who bought into it. But it doesn’t help the world move for­ward to hoist up every bad idea as “just anoth­er option”.

Of course, you can’t stop this from hap­pen­ing. Not least because peo­ple dif­fer on what’s a bad idea. And that’s fine! There will always be dif­fer­ent groups advo­cat­ing for dif­fer­ent things. But as indi­vid­u­als, we shouldn’t be afraid to impart our opin­ion on ideas.

Ideas are meant to be attacked, torn apart, and put back togeth­er again. You may well want to shield your idea from the harsh sun­light at first, but by the time it’s ready to meet the world, it should also be ready for rain or shine. Bad ideas are sup­posed to with­er under the stress of crit­i­cism.

Hell, even good ideas are sup­posed to with­er in the win­ter of their life. Pre­cious few ideas are immor­tal, and even those should be con­stant­ly test­ed to ensure their hearts still beat vibrant­ly.

The rea­son we get rid of bad ideas is to make room for new ones. If your cat­a­logue of tech­niques is brim­ming with YMMV char­i­ty cases, you’re less like­ly to come up with or enter­tain new entrants. Hoard­ing bad ideas that might come in handy when the full moon shines pur­ple is just that. Hoard­ing.

The flow of new ideas is far more impor­tant. Throw ‘em up, bat ‘em out. Declar­ing “oh well, that didn’t work out like I thought” is an incred­i­bly lib­er­at­ing feel­ing. I might even go as far as to say it’s moti­vat­ing. It’s like clear­ing your desk or emp­ty­ing your inbox. Ahh, a fresh start!

It takes a strong ego to let go of bad ideas that you orig­i­nat­ed, but rarely peo­ple will think less of you for it. Which is more than can be said of cling­ing end­less­ly to bad ideas past their due.


David